Safe In My Arms
by uial
Summary: On the Quest, Sam struggles with horrible, violent dreams involving Frodo. Is it the Ring’s influence? Or is Sam truly losing his mind? (slash, violence) READ THE WARNINGS!


Safe in My Arms       

By uial

Rating: R (violence, non-consensual sex, slash)

Category: Angst/Drama

Pairing: Sam/ Frodo

Disclaimer: All characters and places belong to J.R.R. Tolkien. No financial gain is derived, nor is any copyright infringement intended by the use thereof.

Summary: On the Quest, Sam struggles with horrible, violent dreams involving Frodo. Is it the Ring's influence? Or is Sam truly losing his mind? (slash, violence)

Warning!!!!!!!! Violence and adult content. Consider this slash if you will but keep an open mind.  

~

Sam slept.

As habit formed on their journey, too much strain and worry took their toll on his body and mind during the day but at night he found solace in a dead, dreamless sleep. Of late, however, he'd been waking to nightmares, lurid and sickening beyond sanity.

It had started harmlessly enough. Sam dreamed about walking through a sticky, dark fog, only steps behind Frodo, whom he knew to be there but could not see. He felt the back of his head burn. Watched, he knew. Whatever lurked behind him had malicious purpose. Sam did not doubt it. He would turn around, intent on catching at least a glimpse of the unseen foe. But there was no one behind him but the fetid, stifling fog, choking all breath out of him. 

Every night, the dream would progress a little further. Only a few nights ago, he had started discerning Frodo's shadow treading through the mist ahead of him. In the nights that followed, he had started recognizing the contours of his master form, more and more clearly, until he could see Frodo quite plainly. Yet with the awareness that Frodo walked in front of him, the pressure of the gaze burning into his back increased twofold. 

The dreams did not stop there. As Sam advanced, his nostrils picked up a scent of fresh soap and rain and he realized that it was Frodo who left that sweet-smelling trail in his wake. A fragrance so subtle and familiar, yet so alluring that Sam felt his limbs turn to jelly. All at once, Sam noted a spring in his master's gait that had not been there before and he noticed that Frodo wore different clothes. No elven cloak. Instead, he wore a dark blue velvet suit, fine-looking as ever. Frodo turned towards Sam and the Ring resting on his chest gleamed sharply for an instant. His face radiated health and glowed immaculate, not one scratch or dirt streak marring the porcelain features. 

But it was the languid smile Frodo beamed that bore into Sam's very soul. It was the wanton, lascivious manner of Frodo's deliberate moves. The smouldering glance that burned through Sam's unprepared mind like a branding iron. The tantalizing way in which every movement that Frodo made had a sensual, deeper undertone directed straight at Sam. As if dream-Frodo knew that Sam could not take his eyes off him. Knew. And thrived on the knowledge. 

Frodo's eyes, wide, almost frightened during the day had become half-lidded and lust-laden in the long hours of Sam's dreams, enticing, inviting and craving attention and touch and worship. And so much more.

Making Sam forget the peril that stalked them, erasing all reason from his mind except the burning need to taste and feel.

And like every other night, Sam could no longer resist the vision in front of his eyes and he reached out to touch the rosy gleaming cheek. Frodo's lips parted slightly, his look welcoming Sam to touch, and to taste….

Sam would have never been so bold in a hundred years but this, _this_ was something so unexpected, so longed-for, that in that very moment Samwise Gamgee renounced all propriety. Nothing he had done before in his life or that he was ever likely to do seemed more important. 

'It's so beautiful….', he rasped in a voice that he barely recognized as his own.

Sam's hand only ever got as far as a breath away from Frodo's face, his whole body trembling with disturbing anticipation, when darkness inexorably engulfed everything and Sam would be flung into the waking world, gasping, his body tense and unfulfilled, his mind reeling from the tangle of shame and desire and confusion.

Afterwards, Sam would lie awake an unmoving, drenched in sweat and enraged tears, and a long time passed before his taut muscles would begin to unwind. But the outrage and the guilt did not dispel with the dawning of a new day.

At first, Sam could not explain the dreams. He could not fathom how something that had been so far from his mind all the years he had known Frodo could crash on him in such desperate times.

Sure, he had known Frodo for a long time, had admired and loved him with the sort of blind loyalty that had drawn many a sneer from peers and enemies alike. But this was different. It was wrong, even despicable.

Of course, Sam's practical mind had already found an answer to this at least part of his recurring dream.

It's that Stinker, Sam told himself under his breath, thinking of how the creature's eyes bore into him. 

Always there, a menace that he felt with every glance he got from the ancient creature. Always watching them, always averting those moon-like eyes whenever one of them lowered their eyes on him. Sam watched him like a hawk and felt guilty for not being able to read Gollum's mind. 

The creature glanced in Sam's direction at times with undisguised hatred, and Sam swore that Gollum could read the shameful truth in his mind. It was no more than the shadow of a sneer, or the pointed way in which Gollum turned his eyes towards Frodo afterwards that unnerved Sam no end. He fought hard to master the urge to wrap his hand around Gollum's neck and squeeze until all his pent up anger and tension would be released one way or another.

His master talked less and less, conserving what little energy he still possessed. Sam had time to think, and to watch. And in between worrying for Frodo and glancing Gollum's way with murder in his heart, he tried to understand why he had been having those perverted dreams. 

Sam reasoned that there could me more than one explanation. As much as he believed that the gaze burning into his head belonged to Gollum, he would be a fool to ignore the possibility of the Ring's malevolent sway.

But then blaming it all on the Ring was easy. Sam understood that. Still, it was certainly more fitting than to admit that these thoughts had been there all these years and he had suppressed them. That the blind admiration and devotion Sam had for Frodo was so much more. He needed to believe he had accompanied Frodo, all this time, because he wanted to protect him rather than because he could not bear to be parted from him.

In the days that followed, Sam caught himself looking in Frodo's direction, almost expecting to see that something, that infinitesimal touch of wantonness that all but rubbed off the Frodo he saw in his dreams. He found himself watching out for his friend's body language, like the way his back muscles knotted when he bent over the streams to wash, or the way he slowly turned his head from side to side to release the tension in his neck. Gestures that had always been there but that Sam, first out of curiosity, then out of guilt-ridden need, found himself wishing to interpret in an entirely different way.

But there were no such signs. 

The frail figure in front of him was nothing more than an exhausted hobbit, body twitching at times from tension and the need to rest beyond all else, face haggard and eyes sunken, but spirit as of yet unbroken. 

And as Sam was reminded of that spirit burning like a flame between all the Ring represented and the rest of Middle-Earth, he succeeded in bringing himself back to reality and to the task at hand, albeit for a short while.

Save me, he raised a silent plea to whoever would care to listen. I'm no good to him thinking such thoughts. Samwise Gamgee, get yourself together or else it'll be the undoing of the both of you. You promised you'd never leave him, but with you thinking like this, he's in more danger than ever. You'd do better to turn tail and leave while he's still whole and unharmed by you.

Except no matter what manner of harshness Sam used in an attempt to tug himself back to reality, moments later his mind would slip along the same path, like the drunk whose steps guided him unfailingly to the coveted pint of ale no matter the cost.

~~

They had left Ithilien behind a few days now and they were due to start climbing towards the pass of Cirith Ungol in the morning.

For several nights, the detestable dream had obstinately stopped exactly the same point, moments before Sam could close the distance between himself and Frodo with his lips.

Halfway through the night, Sam was woken by the frigid moonlight shining in his eyes through a thin shroud of clouds. He shifted uncomfortably and, out of deep-rooted habit, he checked to see if his master was sleeping: he was not. Frodo was struggling to drink water holding the flask with shaking hands, swaying as he sat up wearily. He gasped when he finished drinking, as if some other hand had wrestled the life sustaining liquid out of his reach, except to Sam it sounded more like a groan of pain.

Sam's chest tightened when he saw Frodo's hand travel up to where the Ring lay under his shirt. In a moment Frodo would clutch it and the Ring's deceitful promise would spell ecstasy across his features. Only this time, mercifully, Frodo's hand did not touch the Ring. It hovered there briefly but instead climbed to the back of his neck. Tentatively, Frodo touched his skin and a small hiss escaped him. The hand came away and the fingers were smeared with blood.

Why haven't I seen this before? Sam cursed himself for looking out for other signs. Signs that he failed to see every time he looked. In an instant, he dashed to Frodo's side. 

'Here, Mr. Frodo, let me help you with that.'

Frodo did not protest like other times. He just sat there, shoulders slumped, mute and defeated, letting Sam tend to him. Sam dipped a cloth in the pot of cold tea abandoned by the remains of their fire. 

'Let's get you out of this shirt,' Sam continued in the same soothing tone and it occurred to him that Frodo neither heard him nor gave any sign that he was conscious. Had it not been for him sitting up unaided, with eyes wide open and staring into the darkness, Sam would have thought him asleep. Or worse.

Sam undid the buttons and gently lowered his master's braces and shirt, brushing the length of Frodo's arms and meeting no resistance at all except for pliant, yielding limbs. The chain had eaten into the skin at the back of Frodo's neck and Sam did not need light to feel the fresh warm blood oozing out of cracked, previously scabbed skin. A constantly re-opening wound. And while Sam's jaw tightened with pity and rage, his fingers trailed upwards along Frodo's arms, rubbing here, stroking there, in blatant defiance of what his conscious mind, and decency alike, demanded.

'So beautiful,' he heard himself croak out loud, to his utter horror.

And to his utter disbelief, Frodo's unresponsive body shifted slightly and his head turned. Sam found himself gazing into Frodo's liquid eyes and the shadow of the unspoken question buried there. Their faces were closer than Sam ever remembered, save perhaps when Frodo had lain unconscious in Rivendell and Sam had spent hours with his cheek pressed to his ailing master's temple. Frodo bore a look so unguarded, so full of abandon that Sam, before even becoming aware of moving, cupped the beloved face in both hands, handling it with such delicacy as if it were made of the most delicate bone china. His face closed in on the lips that parted slightly at the touch of his own.

So beautiful…my own… 

'No!' Sam's broken voice bounced off the walls of the rock formation that served as their meagre shelter. Brutally almost, Sam pulled away from Frodo. Still, there was no reaction from the other hobbit, who froze again in the same position as before, too tired and confused to question anything.

As if nothing had happened, Sam returned to tending Frodo's chafed neck, but his hands were shaking so violenty and his breath came so unevenly, that eventually he had to stop and try to gather his wits.

_'Why not, Sam?'_

It was not Frodo's voice yet Sam thought it sounded uncannily like him. A voice he would trust above all else. He had known this other voice to be there for some time now though he had not yet heard it in all it's might. It was harrowing and persistent, a mere whisper reminding Sam that this interlude was by far not over. 

_'Isn't this what you wanted? Did he resist? Did he even say 'no'?'  _

Don't you understand? Sam wanted to scream. If I do this now, there's no going back.

Sam wondered how his master had judged his actions, if indeed he had been remotely aware of them. Why was there no reaction? Frodo continued to sit, his body sagging in the vanquished listlessness Sam had grown so accustomed to. 

_Shout at me, strike me, and tell me what a wretch I am! Send me from your side for daring to lay my hands on you with twisted purpose. Do something!! Anything!!! But don't just sit there, ignoring what almost happened between us. Not caring that this moment is slipping away. _

_You must not let it…_

He was not sure when his will was finally overcome, but the next moment he was aware of himself, Sam had spun Frodo's body around forcibly and was crushing him under his weight, covering his mouth in ardent, fierce kisses. Startled from his entranced stillness, Frodo tried to mutter something, but Sam's hot breath muffled the words, whether they were protest or encouragement. 

I'll never let go again, I won't stop, Mr. Frodo. I can't stop, not now, not again…

Underneath him, Frodo attempted to struggle but was no match for Sam's strength.

'Let me take care of you, Mr. Frodo,' he breathed against Frodo's mouth while his arms effectively pinned him to the ground, 'you'll never be sorry. Never, if I can help it...'

A distant cry, eagle or Nazgul, it mattered not as it reached Sam's ears, yet it served to remind him that time was not on his side and that what must be done, must be done quickly, before this spell was shattered. 

The body he held trapped under his own wrestled ineffectually and the resistance blinded Sam with desire all the more. Frodo's dirt-streaked torso, still bare from earlier ministrations, looked like snowy marble veined with blue, cold and supple and silken even now, after so many weeks of hunger and hardship. Frodo's sword belt and pants were little challenge against Sam's deftness and he worked his own clothes loose with the same instinctive haste. Sting clattered to the ground where it fell unsheathed and discarded, the moon's indifferent face mirroring the bizarre struggle off the Elven blade.

'Sam, not like this…'

'Yes, Frodo, I know, love, right away. Your Sam'll take care of you, you're safe, safe in my arms…'

Only one glance at the bare body, tinged blue in the clouded moonlight and Sam felt so painfully aroused like never before. He had only done this with lasses before but a positive, undeniable instinct drove him unfalteringly until he found his way and once he had gained entry, he knew this was where he had needed to be all along. 

Sam felt like he had finally come home. Home, after so many years of wandering.

'Sam,…,' 

'There, love, I know it hurts, but trust your Sam, he'll take care of you…'

Frodo shuddered violently once at the invasion, then he went horribly still. Sam was oblivious to anything except the body under his, frozen cold on the outside, ablaze with throbbing heat inside. Frodo's hands were now balling into fists, now clawing at the air while his words were choked by harsh intakes of breath in the same cadence with Sam's own.

Sam's first moves were gently tentative, but soon the swelling wave of pleasure started choking him with the intensity of a pair of hands seeking to throttle him. His patience and reason were the first to be swept away along with the tattered remains of his will and Sam gave in fully to the furious desire that consumed him and he drove himself with such avid resolve as if the very fate of Middle-Earth depended on it.

What words Frodo tried to utter were drowned into the rising rhythm of Sam's wildly pounding blood. Frodo had bitten down on his own lips, hard, grinding on his desire to scream, drawing blood and the sight of the fresh droplets on the pale mouth drove Sam mad with craving. Once again, he covered Frodo's mouth with his own, preying on it, tasting the maddening saltiness of the blood, and suckling on it as if it were his only sustenance. 

He lifted his head long enough to see Frodo's face screwed up in what seemed like exquisite agony and Sam quickened his pace, almost reflexively. Out of nowhere, Sam's eyes registered half-disconnectedly the damp dripping like sweat or tears along the rock wall and briefly, he worried about the cold rocky ground driving itself into Frodo's bare spine.

Sam shifted his lower arms from where they were pinning his master's with bruising force, and wove his fingers into Frodo's to gain more ease of movement. He pushed forward with renewed might, each singular thrust sending his head soaring further and further along a path of such danger and ecstasy that he thought his heart might burst with the effort.

Moments away from the end of his road, Sam's sight became entwined with the shy glow of the Ring resting oblivious and forgotten on Frodo's chest. Sam felt his control failing and his breath heaving out of control, too desperate to prolong the exquisite feeling and he pressed forward one last time. Frodo's subdued body bucked up unexpectedly as if to meet him. The Ring slipped on its chain and fell back behind Frodo's shoulder. 

The heavy gold band making contact with the rock was hardly more than a chime yet it echoed like a death knell into Sam's heightened senses. He heard his own prolonged, grief-stricken heave become an animal groan as release crashed on him pitilessly yet entirely devoid of the pleasure he had so fervently anticipated, leaving him just as hungered as ever and knowing it now all to be a lie.

In that instant, his senses opened up with brutal clarity and he regained awareness of many things at once.

Frodo's face: a mask of pain and unspeakable hurt. Frodo's body: evidence of the terrible act Sam had committed. Frodo's voice: the cry of protest that Sam now recognized had been there all along.

'Sam,….no!…please…it hurts… _please_….stop!'

Sam opened his mouth to scream.

~~

Clammy, unnaturally long fingers clamped over Sam's mouth.

'Shhhhhhh! Fat hobbit will bring all orcses in Mordor down on ussss, precious, before we even get there!'

Sam lay rigid with horror, in utter confusion, breathing in short and uneven puffs through his nose until Gollum was satisfied that he was not intent on screaming anymore and released his hold.

He looked up at the vile creature and he was now happy beyond reason to see him. He would trade Gollum's hateful sneers any day over having to look at Frodo's form lying broken and defiled by the hands of his protector.

'Does it want the enemy to catch usss? Does it know what the enemy do to their prisoners, precioussss?'

Gollum's chastisement sounded like the wisest thing Sam had ever heard and on impulse, he sprang up and grabbed Gollum's wrists. The creature shrunk back, sudden fear causing the wiry body to stiffen instantly.

'I'd never do that,' Sam sobbed, 'I'd have my heart cut out before I'd hurt him.'

'Do what, precioussss?' Gollum's tone turned unctuous and suggestive, bringing Sam back to himself immediately. He released Gollum's wrists. Not even the deliberate look that Gollum gave him mattered any longer.

He glanced around and saw their pitiful camp undisturbed. Frodo lay tangled in his blankets, breathing evenly in uninterrupted, if unsettled sleep, his fist wrapped tightly around the Ring. There were no clothes strewn about and no signs that a struggle had taken place. The sky was covered with a thick blanket of cloud. No shrouded moon reflected naked, pale skin and bleeding lips.

Sam collapsed back on the ground and let the muffled sobs rising up in his throat turn into tremors that shook his frame ruthlessly. Relief flooded him in waves as he prodded his own body and realised that he was fully dressed and in no need to clean himself up.

This is what I'll become if I listen to It. No more than a beast. No better than Gollum or the Dark Lord's servants.

Sam had no mind for great battles or dominion over the races of Middle-Earth. But the way his mind worked, he recognized deceit and treachery in the scheme that was beginning to unravel. He understood that whatever force of darkness had tempted him, had done so with purpose. 

During the endless days and nights when he would breathlessly anticipate and dread the beginning of his foul dreams, Sam had found himself wishing that he could just turn around and leave. And that if anything in those dreams was true, he would have died a thousand deaths rather than become the monstrous creature who laid a hand on his master against his wishes. 

But leaving Frodo meant breaking his promise. And playing into the hand of the cruel forces that wanted Frodo alone and bereft of even as little protection as Sam could offer.

It wants me to leave'im, Sam muttered to himself and having said it out loud brought his battered spirit an unexpected surge of confidence.

Sam recognized the malicious gaze splitting the back of his head in his dreams. It wasn't Gollum's treachery, but rather the sway of that which Gollum himself had been enslaved to for centuries. 

It was there and It wanted Sam to know that It was watching. And waiting for another opportunity…

He had no doubt there would be a time when It would place a different kind of challenge before him, but for now, Sam had won the battle. He knew not for how long he could bask in his small victory, for the war waged on. But he knew that even before the Ring tried to tempt him again, he would not think to stray from his master's side again. That he would fight It with his last breath.

You'll have to do better than that, you wretch, Sam thought bitterly. Because I'm not leaving him, no matter what thoughts you put in my head and no matter what horrors you show me in my dreams.

~

A little while later, Sam wrapped himself in his blanket and settled in for what was left of the night. Gollum had fallen silent and, understanding that he could no longer extract the desired result out of his hateful teasing of Sam, he had crawled away on one of his nocturnal hunting sessions. Frodo was moaning something softly in his sleep, but by the sounds of it, it must have been something pleasant, because Sam thought he saw the phantom of a smile quivering on his master's pale lips. 

Sam thanked the stars for small favours and in the silence that covered the sky, he closed his eyes, free of the terror that had haunted his dreams until now.

A distant shriek splintered the silence and Sam recognized it now to be a Nazgul. But it was yet on the other side of the mountains although a little too close for comfort, but Sam refused to open his eyes. 

He knew that time was not on their side and what must be done, must be done quickly, before the Ring shattered such little shelter as he had built against the gathering storm.

~ The End ~

A/N: I had half a mind to explain why this fic was written like this. But I gather that those of you who read it and liked it already understood why. 

For those of you who read this and have a mind to flame me, here goes: this piece tries to show that even if Sam had been tempted into the worst possible course of action by the Ring (i.e. leaving Frodo because of the thoughts he entertained), his loyalty and love for his master eventually prevailed. Whether he had those 'more than devotion' feelings towards Frodo is really beside the point. The Ring showed him that indeed he could do the unthinkable to Frodo and that leaving his master's side would be the logical next step but that Sam's simple, practical mind recognized the treachery and would not be swayed. 


End file.
